Since the 1980s, countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including French-speaking African countries, have been obliged to implement structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), managed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, to resolve budgetary crises. The principal downside of these policies has been a drastic reduction in state funding allocated to essential public services such as education2. In the face of an exponential growth in demand for education , these decisions to reduce state funding for the education sector, along with other factors such as the introduction of flexible regulations favouring private actors, have contributed to an unprecedented growth in private actors in many countries around the world, notably those in francophone Africa.

However, the fact remains that the impact of the privatisation of education in the French-speaking African space is insufficiently documented. Against this background, and in order to increase the availability of data on the extent, impact and political responses to the growth of privatisation of education in French-speaking Africa, civil society organisations in Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali and Madagascar have mobilised. These organisations carried out research, including the field data collection, between 2020 and 2022 in order to increase the availability of factual information on privatisation and its direct impact on the right to education in these four countries.